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Culture war

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The term "culture war" (sometimes pluralized as "the culture wars") has been used to describe ideologically-driven and often strident confrontations typical of American public culture and politics since the 1960s, but especially beginning in the 1980s. The term evokes the 19th-century German Kulturkampf. Paleoconservative Pat Buchanan used the term often, and in one speech, compared it to the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The concept of a "culture war" is also current in Australia, particularly in the area of Australian history and the history wars, the Prime Minister of Australia John Howard is one protagonist as is evidenced in a recent speech. [link]

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The concept of culture war was built on by the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci argued that the reason proletarian revolution had not advanced as fast as many Marxists thought it would was because of cultural hegemony. The theory of cultural hegemony states that a diverse culture can be dominated by one class because of that class' monopoly over the media and popular culture. Gramsci therefore argued for a culture war in which anti-capitalist elements seek to gain a dominant voice in mass media, education, and other mass organizations. The relationship in the United States, with Gramsci's thought also begins here where members of the Republicans and/or Democrats try to gain a dominant voice in the media.

Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (1991)

The expression gained wide use with the 1991 publication of Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America by James Davison Hunter. In that book, Hunter described what he saw as a dramatic re-alignment and polarization that had transformed American politics and culture.

He argued that on an increasing number of "hot-button" defining issues—abortion, gun politics, separation of church and state, privacy, homosexuality, censorship issues— there had come to be two definable polarities. Furthermore, it was not just that there were a number of divisive issues, but that society had divided along essentially the same lines on each of these issues, so as to constitute two warring groups, defined primarily not by nominal religion, ethnicity, social class, or even political affiliation, but rather by ideological world views.

Hunter characterised this polarity as stemming from opposite impulses, toward what he refers to as Progressivism and Orthodoxy. The dichotomy has been adopted with varying labels, including, for example, by commentator Bill O'Reilly who emphasizes differences between "Secular-Progressives" and "Traditionalists".

Buchanan's 1992 speech

See also culture war speech

During the same period, paleoconservative commentator Patrick J. "Pat" Buchanan mounted a campaign for the Republican nomination for president of the United States against incumbent George H. Bush in 1992. After doing surprisingly well in the first primary election in New Hampshire, where he drew in 37% of the vote, his campaign faded. However, he received a consolation prize, a prime time speech slot on the opening night of the 1992 Republican National Convention.

The speech played well with hard-line Republicans, but some consider that it may have alienated moderates, ultimately costing them the election. That is, it was adjudged to have been polarizing. Buchanan said, "There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we will one day be as was the Cold War itself." In short, in the Culture Wars, public morality was to be a defining issue.

Campus culture wars

From the point of view of American academia, the 'culture wars' and their alignments were nothing new — rather, they were perceived as an extrapolation of some conflicts that had been simmering in university life since the 1960s. Positions had been taken up on a number of issues: ethnocentricity of traditional studies such as philosophy and literature, feminism, homosexuality as a topic in the humanities, postmodernism being some of those attracting attention in the arts faculties. Cruder debates in more emotive terms were expected on the curriculum, popular culture, supposed enforcement of political correctness, affirmative action as it applies to admissions, and allegations that teaching was too centred on so called "dead white males" and WASP interpretations.

The campus culture wars reflected a change in the demographics of the student population, as well as (arguably, at least) social change in society at large. Public intellectuals have sometimes been content to blur the distinction between 'culture war' in this sense, and in national politics.

The 1992 book Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can Revitalize American Education by Gerald Graff took a positive line on the agonistic nature of the campus culture wars.

After 9/11

The national mood post-9/11 had been compared by some to the time of the start of the Great Depression. Others disputed that, arguing that the 9/11 attacks were "a new Pearl Harbor" that heralded the beginning of a culture shift. Some right-wing and some left-wing intellectuals saw a post-9/11 United States as being more assertive, more militaristic, unilateral, and jingoistic. The perceived change was both applauded and criticized.

Relatively few questioned at the time that public opinion was more unified than before the attacks. The idea that the events of 9-11 might have ended the culture wars, however, became less tenable after the 2004 presidential election. Debates and controversy over "hot button" culture wars issues of the 1980s and 1990s seemed more polarized than ever. The red state/blue state electoral divide showed the country very evenly split.

Commentators and others were surprised by exit polls on November 2nd, 2004. Many voters responded that their primary concern in the election was "moral values." It has been pointed out that this may be misleading: the Iraq War and terrorism were separate items, but many Americans saw those as one and the same, or closely related.

Further reading

See also

Battleground issues in the \"culture wars\"

Australia

External links

United States

Australia

 

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